Old laptop, old user, unmountable boot volume issue

Hi,

I wonder if you can help a poor old gentleman (well, 55) fix his poor old laptop?!
It's a Compaq Evo N620C, running XP Professional with service pack 2.
I have two of these, one is working fine, the other won't boot, and goes to BSOD with the error flagged as unmountable boot volume.
I have little technical knowledge but have googled a little.

The normal route to a fix seems to be via the original XP CD.
The machines are ex-company laptops which were rebuilt by the techies using the enterprise installation operating system so I don't have any discs.

I've tried to boot to last good config, no good.
Tried to go to safe mode with command prompt and do a chkdsk, no good.

It's been suggested that a boot disc could be a way forward, but I don't know how to do that.
Can anyone help with this at all, or with other suggestions?
I know the laptop is old, but it still is useful to me, in fact it's probably more useful than me, so any assistance will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

 

Sorted.
Found some instructions as to how to put recovery console on a disc and used that to run chkdsk, which fixed it ... I think.